Feature Request: Cost tracking for inventory items.

[casadyc]

I just want to have a place to enter the cost of individual items in Square for Restaurants. For example, I might sell a really good burger for $15. My ingredient/supply cost to make that hamburger might be $5.00. I would like to be able to plug $5.00 in a field on that item. That is the absolute minimum that needs to change that could add value for me. With that field, I can export sales and items data and do my own reporting on margin/profit by item as well as by transaction. To me, this seems like a very simple feature to add.

As a second step to this enhancement, I would love to be able to see that cost information available to me in Square reports. When I look at my Item Sales, I'd like to have that field available to me, along with a calculated field of "Profit" and "Margin" so I can easily see what items are the most profitable when combined with sales volume. I could also use it to calculate average ticket margin/profit.

But wait, there's more! When entering the cost information on a particular item, it would be fantastic to have a magic calculator that helped you determine the appropriate price. For example, if I know my burger costs $5, and I'm aiming at 25% or lower COGS, then that little calculator would tell me that at $15 sales price I'm at 33.33% COGS and maybe I should lower my costs, or raise my price.  And as part of that, I could set cost% targets by item category. I have categories for draft beer, food, specials, cocktails, etc. - and each has it's own cost% target. It could also warn me when I attempt to sell something below cost. "Hey! That T-Shirt cost $12 and you're trying to run a $10 T-Shirt sale! Are you sure you want to lose $2 on every sale?!"

I could go on and on with what you can do with cost data. The bottom line is this: with cost information tracking, the value of using Square Items for inventory tracking is vastly increased.

Square Community, click the like button below if you want to see this feature!!

Item cost should be in this section

[premiertattoos]

I sell tattoo supplies. We bought 20 bottles of each color in a tattoo ink collection for one price, then the cost of that item/bottle went up. We bought 20 more bottles of each color at the new cost. How do I track cost of goods sold for an item with the same Name, SKU, and barcode? I tried adding a variation, but got an alert for duplicate SKUs, and the new variation will not update inventory for my online store. What's the best process to track that I have 10 bottles left that I bought for the lower price, and 20 bottles for the higher price? Everything else about the item is the same, including what I sell it for.

[ashc]

Hey @premiertattoos,

I moved your thread to an existing one that @casadyc brought up to request some kind of cost tracking.

The feature request will be tracked here and if something like this becomes available, we'll be sure to update the threads.

[BSLprints]

I'm trying to figure out how to use Square for cost tracking at my print shop - I have Square for Retail which does allow entering an item cost, but it only seems to work if you receive inventory. Since I'm not receiving prints, I'm manufacturing them to order from raw materials, I really could use some way to say "ok an 8" x 10" print on cotton art paper costs me $1.25" and have it basically receive the sale into inventory at the time of the sale so that it tracks it at the cost rate that I have set. I was thinking maybe Square for Restaurants had cost tracking that would make more sense since they also make things to order - but it sounds like cost tracking is completely missing from Square for Restaurants? In my situation I could theoretically do a horrible workaround of receiving each order into inventory before I sell it but that would be pretty ridiculous.

I assume its possible to pull the cost info of an item set in Square for Retail using an API correct? If so then worst case I guess I can write a script to pull my sales reports and the item costs I've entered into Square and generate COGS myself from that?

[casadyc]

Correct, cost tracking is entirely missing from Square for Restaurants for some unknown reason. I actually just added a trial of Square for Retail to my account so I can check out the cost tracking feature and it works! But alas, I’m not interested in paying for a subscription to that just for that one feature.

But you raise an issue I didn’t realize I’d have a problem with as well. I’m not doing inventory tracking of cheeseburgers, so I wouldn’t really be able to use the cost feature either. If I add 1000 cheeseburgers to inventory at a particular cost just so I wouldn’t have to worry about it for a while, it would basically screw up the COGS reports. 

I wish there was a good solution here.